The Bulldogs held Massac County to just 41 percent shooting in the semifinal game of the EHT, while outrebounding the Patriots 21-28.

While Harrisburg did shoot 45 percent from the floor, including a 13-of-17 clip from the free throw line, head coach Randy Smithpeters was much more content with the job done of the defensive end.

“The pressure is here of a semi final game and really happy with the way we defended, that was probably the best end of the floor for us,” he said. “Although we did fine on the offensive end. We didn’t score a lot of points because it was a slower pace game and it needed to be a slower pace game.”

Harrisburg got off to a bit of a rocky start, trailing 4-2 early in the first, but went on a 9-0 run to take a 11-4 lead and hold a 17-7 advantage after one quarter of play. Massac County outscored Harrisburg 13-12 in the second quarter as Harrisburg took a 29-20 lead into the break.

Smithpeters and the Bulldogs employed a slow-down offense a little less than midway through the fourth quarter with a 35-24 lead, the longtime HHS head coach spread his bunch out of the floor and watched as time ticked off the clock.

Smithpeters started the stalled offense with 4:45 to play in the third and didn’t get his offense back in motion until the 3:06 mark, when the Bulldogs were forced to get things going as Massac County head coach Joe Hosman finally whistled his kids to attack.

The end result was a miss by Dakota Upchurch and Tyler Smithpeters, but in all actuality, that wasn’t the primary focus for Smithpeters.

“They went to a triangle-and-two, we’re up 11 points, why attack?“ Smithpeters said. “It’s something different that we wanted to do. Had we been down or behind, yeah we have to score, but we didn’t have to score.”

Harrisburg closed out the third quarter up 43-27 and would go on to outscore Massac County 12-9 in the final eight minutes.

Ryne Roper and Upchurch each finished with six points for the Bulldogs, who will now meet the winner of Gallatin County or Meridian in tonight’s 9 p.m. championship game.

Bahari Amaya added finished with four points and Anfernee Houston came off the bench to knock down a 3-pointer late in the game.